Lionel Meunier

Conductor Lionel Meunier is the director of the vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, widely acclaimed for its interpretations of music by Schütz and other 17th and 18th century composers. He is also a singer whose bass voice has been heard on some of Vox Luminis' recordings. Meunier was born on May 12, 1981, in Clamecy, in the department of Nièvre in central France. As a child, he studied recorder and trumpet and had a classical education in solfège. Meunier attended the Institut Supérieure de Musique et de Pédagogie in Namur, Belgium, a city where he continues to reside. His teachers there included Tatiana Babut du Marès and Hugo Reyne. He graduated in 2004 and went on for further studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in the Netherlands with Rita Dams and Peter Kooy. Meunier had an education in historically informed choral performance as a singer with various leading vocal ensembles in northwestern Europe, including the Collegium Vocale Gent, the Amsterdam Baroque Choir, and the Choeur de Chambre de Namur, performing under leading directors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Jean Tubéry, and Ton Koopman. In 2004, Meunier and keyboardist Francis Penning formed the Brussels-based ensemble Vox Luminis, of which Meunier remains the director. That group made its recording debut in 2010 with an album devoted to Samuel Scheidt's Sacre Cantiones. Meunier continues to perform as a singer, with a repertory not restricted to the Baroque and including such works as Franck's Mass in G major and Mozart's Mass in C major, K. 317 ("Coronation"). As his career developed, Meunier has found himself in demand for master classes in various countries. Meunier and Vox Luminis have been especially acclaimed for their recordings, which have appeared on the Ricercar and Alpha labels. Meunier's catalog includes more than 20 recordings and encompasses both well-known works such as Bach cantatas and more adventurous repertory such as the Brockes-Passion of Reinhard Keiser. Meunier's 2011 recording with Vox Luminis of Heinrich Schütz's Musicalische Exequien was critically acclaimed and won major awards, including Recording of the Year from Britain's Gramophone magazine. In 2021, Meunier led the Freiburger BarockConsort in a recording of the Requiem in F minor by Heinrich Ignaz von Biber. Meunier and Vox Luminis returned in 2023 on the Ricercar label with Ein deutsches Barockrequiem, featuring Baroque settings of the texts used in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45. Meunier and Vox Luminis returned in 2024 with the Freiburger Barockorchester on the album Himmelfahrt, featuring Ascension-themed works by Bach and Telemann. ~ James Manheim, Rovi